spacetoday.net: Shuttle robot arm damaged during repairs

Posted: Wed, Nov 13, 2002, 10:38 AM ET (1538 GMT)
STS-113 pach (NASA)

Technicians inadvertently struck the robot arm in the space shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay while carrying out repair work Tuesday, causing at least superficial damage to the arm. Workers were in the cargo bay attempting to reach the location of an oxygen leak discovered Sunday night when an access platform they were installing bumped into the arm. The collision caused a small tear in the thermal blankets on the arm, but NASA will have to wait until further checks Wednesday to see if the arm suffered other damage. If the only damage was to the thermal blankets, officials believe that can be fixed without any affect on work to fix the oxygen leak that forced NASA to delay the launch of the shuttle one week to November 18.